Users bypass Napster copy protection

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Users have found a way to skirt copy protection on Napster
Inc.'s portable music subscription service just days after its
high-profile launch, potentially letting them make CDs with
hundreds of thousands of songs free.

Such users are already providing instructions to other would-be
song burners through technology websites like BoingBoing.

Napster is offering a free trial of its new Napster To Go
service, which will enable users for a monthly $15 fee to download
as much music as they want and transfer it to a portable device.
They can also pay 99 cents for each track they want to burn to a
CD.

That "rental" model for digital entertainment, backed by giant
software concern Microsoft Corp. and others, is getting its most
serious mass-market tryout yet with Napster to Go.

But, according to various websites, thwarting the intellectual
property protections of the service is as easy as a free software
patch.

Engadget.com said by installing the digital music program Winamp
and then adding a secondary program to Winamp called Output
Stacker, users could convert the digitally protected files from one
format to another that can then be burned, unencumbered, onto
CDs.

"We're not going to advise you to do anything untoward, but
apparently if you install Winamp along with the Output Stacker
plug-in you can convert those protected WMA files to WAV files and
then burn them to CD without paying a penny. Or at least an extra
penny," Engadget.com said on its website.

A Napster spokeswoman said that such endeavours were nothing new
and the company was not too concerned.

"The DRM (digital rights management) is intact. Basically,
people are just recording off a sound card. This is nothing new and
people could do this with any legitimate service if they want to
use a sound card," she said.

"This kind of attack has been around for a long time and it's
just because of our higher profile that it has sparked such
interest," she said.

She said the company had no record of who was doing the illicit
recording.

"The bottom line is that people are always going to find a way
to get around the system, although we give people a way to enjoy
music while respecting artists' rights," she said.

The "new" Napster has positioned itself as the chief competitor
to Apple Computer Inc.'s iTunes service, which dominates the
digital download market.

The original Napster was a free-for-all that let millions of
users download and share songs for free -- before the music
industry forced it into bankruptcy with successful legal
challenges.

American Technology Research analyst P.J. McNealy said that no
matter how protected a music file is, you can capture the output
and save it on the hard drive.

"Now, portable subscriptions are a bigger bullseye or goal for
people," he said.

Napster unveiled the portable subscription earlier this month,
backed by a $30 million ad campaign attacking rival Apple's iTunes
service and its ubiquitous iPod digital music player.

Until recently, music subscription services have been somewhat
restricted in their ability to transfer songs they provide to
portable players, while Apple has sold millions of portable iPods
by allowing users to buy songs from iTunes and store them on
iPods.

But Napster uses a new digital rights management software from
Microsoft called Janus to enable the portable transfers.